MILLENNIALS – IT’S YOUR TURN

For 3 years now, we’ve had a track for “future workers” at the B4T Expo. Two years ago 28 young people attended, last year 38, this year 65.  Last week I was at California Baptist University and in Tijuana at Radius, a discipleship training center that equips young people for working cross-culturally.  Maybe half the 55 students who came to the meeting at CBU were hearing me for the 2nd or 3rd time.  Many indicated a desire to do short-term internships or a 2+ year apprenticeship next year.  In Tijuana, 14 students who are already committed to going to peoples who have no Scriptures had studied my book and were primed with “how to” questions. Each is seeking solutions for serving in closed lands. They challenged me on how they can create B4T models for them to translate and plant churches among the unengaged people groups which the Master has led them to reach. We prayed and brained stormed and we all felt that new ideas were birthed.

Young people keep stepping forward.  There are many open doors for the Good News in hard, unreached, unengaged places via B4T.  And for those struggling to understand millennials or fit millennials into your workplace, stay tuned, I plan to write on that in the coming weeks.

On another topic, last week I received a survey asking me which term (singular) I favored; BAM, B4T, Kingdom Business, etc.  I wrote those who sent out the survey saying I favor all the terms as they all have different meanings.  When I talk about BAM I mean BAM – the big picture word for business and ministry everywhere. BAM has 4 bottom lines; spiritual, social, economic and environment.  When I speak of B4T, I am more narrow, focused on the bottom lines of economic and spiritual and centered geographically on the 10/40 Window and the unreached.  The term “tentmaker” refers to a BAMer/B4Ter/Kingdom Business person/etc. and points out this person receives 100% of their income from their job and no support from friends or charities.

I share this in that if we keep confusing terms, we keep confusing others.  The definitions may be found in the back of my new book, Business for Transformation: Getting Started. 

 

 

PATRICK LAI and his family have worked in SE Asia for over 37 years. His experience in doing business with Jesus has brought him to understand the meaning of work and worship in the marketplace. He started 14 businesses in four countries, six of which are still operating. Patrick and his wife, May, mentor and coach businesspeople working where there are few or no Christians. Check out Patrick’s latest book, Workship, now available in paperback and e-book.